


Getting to Feel Free and Easy

by a_big_apple



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Best Friends, Bonding, Detroit, Fluff, Gen, Homesickness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9782384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: You really know someone, Phichit decides, when you’ve seen them crawling to the bathroom after an unintentional bender and, just days later, wrapping their legs around a pole like an old pro and showing up everyone else in the beginner lesson.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the YOI Secret Valentines exchange on tumblr, for lyricalia! Also, as the tags indicate, please note that there's an anxiety attack in this story. I think it's clear when it's approaching, but be on the lookout if that's something you want to avoid.

Phichit transfers to Cranbrook at the start of the spring semester, so they give him his own room.  On the one hand, it’s a relief; for the first few days, the jet lag is awful, and the wrenching homesickness lasts much longer.  It’s good to have guaranteed privacy in which to call his _mâe_ and cry until he can’t breathe.  

Then again, arriving in the middle of eleventh grade when half of the other students have been at Cranbrook together since they were five is isolating, and his single room even more so.  Sure, there are other oddballs and foreign students, boarding away from home for the first time just like he is, but he doesn’t have time to seek them out or get to know them--every minute he isn’t in class, studying, or sleeping like the dead, Phichit is on the ice.

There, at least, the adjustment is blessedly easy.  Good rinks are all essentially the same, and they all feel like home to him.  Celestino, his new coach, is firm but warm--as ready to distribute hugs and correct Phichit’s English as to criticize his form.  His skating is improving at lightning pace; he’s racing ahead as far as he can go before puberty wrecks his center of gravity.  And, of course, there’s Yuri.

He has other rinkmates, with varying levels of skill and even more varying levels of friendliness, but Yuri is the only one Phichit _knows_ is going to be a friend.  Yuri is three years older, in college already, but his round face and his shy demeanor make him seem much younger.  Most of Phichit’s English comes from the internet, and it’s upon meeting Yuri that he finally understands “smol son.”  

When Phichit voices this sudden revelation, Yuri gives a nonplussed blink, then bursts out laughing.  Ready for every opportunity, Phichit spins around and snaps a selfie while Yuri’s face is transformed and unguarded.  “What’s your IG?” he asks, thumbing through filters as Yuri’s laughter slows into whistled breaths.

“Um,” Yuri replies, looking embarrassed.  Phichit clucks his tongue.

“It’s all right, I’ll sort you out.”  He posts the photo, and captions it _Too good for this world, too pure! #rinkmates #DetroitBFF_

It takes another week or two for Yuri to really open up, but he’s no match for Phichit’s persistence and willingness to overshare.  He tells Yuri all about Bangkok, his five sisters, his favorite movies ( _The King and the Skater_ and all of the sequels) and foods ( _mataba_ ) and YouTube beauty channels (Michelle Phan and Nitraa B).  Quiet Yuri lets him ramble, occasionally offering up a gem of information about himself.  He forwards the sweet pictures his sister sends of his dog back at home, he reminisces about his mother’s cooking, and he blushes ten shades of scarlet when he admits, after several casual mentions, that Victor Nikiforov is his number one idol.  

Soon they’re spending time in each other’s dorm rooms, pretending to study while really watching movies and incomprehensible Korean dramas.  Yuri has a single room too, in the international dorm, and on weekends they have sleepovers there and paint each other’s misshapen toenails.  “Just because we suffer for our art doesn’t mean we can’t look good doing it,” Phichit reasons.

You really know someone, he thinks, when you can lay awake and talk to each other in the dark about how much it means to be here, training, and at the same time how much you miss your home.

***

A year flies by; two.  Phichit lands his first quad in an international competition, and takes home his first international bronze.  Yuri, ahead of him in age and skill, nabs three international silvers and gold at the Japanese Nationals, inching his way up in the world rankings.  Yuri turns twenty-one, and they get roaring drunk in true American fashion; Phichit learns that his friend is a _wild_ drunk, and he secretly backs up his photos of the evening on three separate thumb drives before letting Yuri delete them from his phone.  He turns eighteen just two months before his high school graduation, and for his gift, Yuri presents him with a folder full of printouts of apartments for rent near the rink.  Two-bedroom apartments.

“I’m getting tired of dorm life,” Yuri explains, as if he hasn’t just ticked about six boxes on Phichit’s list of friendship goals.  “Too many parties, and it’s too far from the rink.”

Phichit throws his arms around him.  “We’re gonna have _so much fun_ , Yuri!” he squeals.  “But couldn’t you have texted me the links like a normal person?”

They move into their new place the day after Phichit’s graduation ceremony, and celebrate with the most passable Thai delivery in the city and a case of Japanese beer.  In the morning, they wake up covered in glitter and smashed together on the couch Yuri bought secondhand from the previous tenant, and discover when Phichit blearily checks his email that sometime around 3am they both registered (and prepaid) for a pole dancing fitness class.

“At least we picked a time that doesn’t conflict with practice?” he offers; Yuri just buries his face in the back of the couch and groans.

You really know someone, Phichit decides, when you’ve seen them crawling to the bathroom after an unintentional bender and, just days later, wrapping their legs around a pole like an old pro and showing up everyone else in the beginner lesson.

***

Yuri is a perfect roommate.  He’s neat and responsible and he knows how to cook.  They never bicker, just carefully fit the pieces of their daily routines together like cogs, then let them run.  Summer waxes hot and wanes hotter, and in the fall the training season starts up again.  They fall into a routine.

Then their rinkmate misjudges a jump and crashes hard.  The sound when Jamel’s head hits the ice is like nothing Phichit’s ever heard before, and he hopes never to hear it again; there’s blood, and shouting, and an ambulance.  Sitting in the waiting room later in a clutch of worried skaters, Phichit’s terrified and desperately wants to hold Yuri’s hand, but his friend has pulled into himself like a crab on the beach.  Susanna can’t see it--she’s got a crush, Phichit knows, a pretty hopeless one as far as he can tell--and when she wraps her arms around Yuri he startles and shoves her away.  She apologizes, he apologizes; Celestino hugs her instead, and silence falls even thicker than before.  

At last there’s news--he’s awake, _he’ll recover_ , but he needs rest and they’re told only his father is allowed in to see him, it’s after visiting hours.

“Come on, Yuri,” Phichit finally says, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from pulling his friend physically to his feet.  “Let’s go home.”  Yuri nods and rises, follows him to the corner and into a cab and up to their apartment, but he never quite seems to uncurl.

“Mind if I jump in the shower first?” Phichit asks, and Yuri just shakes his head.  “Okay.”  He stands under the spray as long as he can stand it, as hot as he can stand it, letting the water wash away the cold adrenaline sweat and steam the ache out of his muscles.  

When he emerges, Yuri’s nowhere to be seen and his bedroom door is closed.  Phichit retreats to his own room to pull on his comfiest sleep clothes and retrieve his hamster plushie; thus armed, he knocks on Yuri’s door.  “Hey, are you hungry?  Let’s order in.”  Yuri doesn’t answer.  He knocks again.  “Yuri?”

Still no reply, but he hears a quiet gulp of breath, like a swallowed-down sob.  “Yuri, are you okay?”

There’s a long, terrifying silence, and Phichit clutches the doorknob, but can’t quite make himself turn it.  Then, at last, Yuri’s wobbly voice.  “No.”

He swings the door open and finds Yuri with his hands pressed hard to his face, crumpled on the floor like he couldn’t make it all the way to the bed.  He’s trembling, breathing quick and shallow, and it’s awful--but Phichit’s been calm this whole awful day, he can damn well keep doing it now.  He folds himself down beside Yuri, wraps his fingers gently around Yuri’s wrists.  “Hey,” he says, low and quiet.  “Hey, Yuri, I’ve got you.  I’ve got you, and you know what we’re gonna do?  We’re gonna just breathe for a bit.  Give me your hands...put them right here.  That’s it.  Feel that?  In...out.  In...out.  We’re gonna count them.  Count them out in Thai, like how I taught you.  Remember?   _Nèung...sŏng...săam...sèe_ ….”

They’re exhausted in the morning, and sore from crashing and falling asleep sideways on Yuri’s bed.  Yuri’s still quiet, but it’s the more natural, familiar kind, and Phichit has no qualms prodding it.

“Get dressed, we’re going out today,” he says, though he makes no move to get up himself, just elbows Yuri lightly in the side.

“Phichit,” Yuri replies, less than a scold but more than a sigh.  “I’m sorry.  About last night.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Phichit tells him, and believes it utterly.  Then he drags them both to their feet and shoves Yuri in the direction of his closet.  “Now get dressed!”

They take a Lyft to the Oakland Mall.  At last Phichit gives in to his impulse from the day before, grabbing Yuri by the hand to draw him along to the pet store, where he tells the first staff member he sees that he and his boyfriend are _very_ serious about choosing a puppy to take home, and would like to play with all the very cutest ones in order to make the best choice.  Yuri sputters but goes along, letting himself be plunked down in a tiny room and presented with adorable dogs until he’s finally, _finally_ laughing again.

After at least an hour of puppy therapy, Phichit confides in the staffer helping them that he’s not really sure they’re ready for the responsibility of a dog--perhaps they might look at hamsters instead?  “Look!” he tells Yuri, unable to contain his glee, “these three in here are colored like medals!  Gold, silver, and bronze!  Yuuuuuriiiii, we have to take them home!”

You really know someone, Phichit muses later as Yuri helps him set up the hamsters’ new habitat, when you’ve seen them fall to pieces and put themselves back together again.

***

“I think you can never really, truly know all there is to know about someone,” Phichit says, clutching his glass of champagne and trying to keep the wobble out of his voice, “because people just keep growing.  Yuri, you’ve grown so much, and I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of that.  Now Victor’s lucky enough to be a part of that too.”  He glances at the newlyweds; Victor is already crying, and Yuri looks both embarrassed and extraordinarily content, his head resting on his husband’s shoulder and their arms looped together.  “May you continue to grow, within yourselves and with each other, and with me, and with all of us here who love you.  May you never stop surprising us, Yuri.”


End file.
